Session 17: Substrates

Refinement of transparent conductive films on flexible glass by in-line flash lamp annealing
Thursday, February 15, 2018
10:40 AM - 11:00 AM

Ultra-thin flexible glass is currently one of the most interesting flexible substrate materials. It is thin, light, and can be manufactured in rolls. Despite of its fragility, with its superior surface quality, high transparency, perfect barrier properties, high thermal and dimensional stability, flexible glass opens up novel approaches in flexible electronics. We report about the status our research activities in sheet-to-sheet and the roll-to-roll coating of transparent conductive thin-films on flexible glass under pilot-scale conditions. The refinement of the optical and electrical properties of the TCO films were done by in-line flash lamp annealing (FLA). With FLA, TCO layers are flashed with highly energetic Xenon light in a time range of few milliseconds. This light is absorbed by the TCO layer. The use FLA in in-line mode allows a significant reduction of the process time compared to standard heating procedures like furnace annealing. This is an important progress for thin-film processing on flexible glass in high-volume manufacturing processes in sheet-to-sheet or roll-to-roll.